Romney: No apologies for Mass. plan

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Mitt Romney offered no apologies and instead delivered a full-throated defense of his Massachusetts health care plan Thursday in a much-anticipated health care policy presentation at the University of Michigan.

“I recognize that a lot pundits around the nation are saying that I should just stand up and say this whole thing was a mistake, that this was a boneheaded idea, and I should just admit it: it was a mistake, and walk away. I presume that a lot of folks think that if I did that it would be good for me politically, ” Romney said as he flipped through slides of a PowerPoint presentation he prepared himself. “There’s only one problem with that: it wouldn’t be honest.”

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But in defending and refusing to retreat on the health care plan he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts, Romney took an enormous political gamble, betting that a consistency on the issue was more important to his 2012 fortunes than appealing to conservatives who expected to hear something closer to an act of contrition.

Romney was careful to avoid leaving any impression that he was changing his position.

“I am not adjusting the plan to reflect the political sentiment,” he said.

Aside from some different packaging—notably, a presentation delivered via PowerPoint— the speech wasn’t a significant departure from any of Romney’s previous remarks.

And it echoed a similar Romney speech defending his plan back when he was governor in 2006.

In talking points distributed to allies on Thursday, the Romney camp noted that, unlike with the federal law, the Massachusetts program “did not raise taxes or divert resources from seniors.”

As for the individual mandate that both plans share—for conservatives, the most noxious part of the president’s plan—the campaign offered two familiar rebuttals.

First, that the Massachusetts mandate was implemented to advance fiscal conservative principles. It keeps people from taking advantage of taxpayers by receiving free care at emergency rooms, Romney said.

“Overall, am I proud of the fact that we did our best for our people and we got people insured? Absolutely,” he said.

In addition, Romney argued that the individual mandate was in keeping with the principles of federalism—one slide read, “10th Amendment: A State Decision.”

“It was a power grab from states, with the federal government saying we know better than states,” Romney said of the president’s plan. “Our plan was a state solution to a state problem, and his was a power grab to put a one-size-fits-all plan across the nation.”